The Easter Egg Hunt
by olirulz111
Summary: A one shot to celebrate easter, Sly Cooper style.


**The Easter Egg Hunt**

By Olirulz111

A one shot to celebrate Easter, Sly Cooper style.

**Police HQ, Paris, France. Easter Saturday, 12:29pm, 30****th**** March 2002.**

This is such a trivial thing to do; this is no way to spend the working hours of the day, thought a certain young Interpol agent named Carmelita Fox. She had been loathing this point of the day, where Chief Barkley had planned an Easter egg hunt around the building to 'help boost morale and improve teamwork'. Managerial buzzwords from the higher ups annoyed her immensely. How could a child's game bring more criminals behind bars? If anything this gives them a safe window to do their worst. If any criminal knew about this, if word got out, then this could turn into a media frenzy, followed by a healthy serving of rolling heads. Nevertheless, she complies with her superior's instructions and is waiting in the break room along with the other 22 officers that are not currently on duty with Chief Barkley standing across the room with a hat full of strips of papers with names on them.

"Alright officers, settle down. Now, to celebrate Easter I've decided we'd do a little egg hunt around the building." Barkley instructs. "You're all going to be paired up at random when I draw you out of this hat. The eggs are being hidden as we speak so there are none in this room. Simple rules, the hunt is only on this floor and the team with the highest weight of eggs will receive…"

Barkley brings out a plain cardboard box that about the size of the shoebox and opens it for everyone to see the contents.

"It's called the TR-51, a prototype pistol that weapons R&D company wants us to trial, fires electric pulses instead of bullets and apparently can fire over 500 rounds without reloading; the winner will be the one trialing it."

This starts some murmuring between the officers, some about how it's going to fall apart and other about how it'll never be as good a real gun. For Carmelita, she's simply hoping that she doesn't get picked with… him.

"Okay, I'll start drawing names." Barkley announces, looking away whilst sending his hand into the sea of paper and drawing the first one out.

"McCauley." Barkley announces before picking out another name. "and Jenkinson."

Barkley notes this down on a blank piece of paper so he can tally who's with whom. Pairs are picked out with Carmelita's name still remaining undrawn, what's worse is that he hasn't been either. There are 8 of them left; the smaller the pot goes then the high chance they are paired together. Carmelita is simply hoping she is picked sooner rather than later to put herself out of her own misery.

"Fox."

Her name is called, she stares intently into the hat to try and see which name he is picking out.

"And Winthrop."

She want's to punch someone, preferably Winthrop to definitively quash any future attempts at courting her. She sees Winthrop moving across to his partner; his partner, at least for today he can use that phrase and not be lying about it like he did with his parents in saying her had an office relationship that was a bit rocky. They have a relationship alright, but rocky is a major understatement.

"So, fate has paired us together." He whispers. Carmelita promptly steps hard down on his foot to make him regret that statement, all while watching the last few names get drawn out.

"So, we just have to wait another 5 minutes until their done hiding them." Barkley announces. Another 5 whole minutes sealed in an enclosed space with Winthrop? She hopes for a crime to have taken place to snap the inspector out of this childish game and release her from the ensuing corny pickup lines and awkward advances.

"That pistol looks nice, shame it's not as good as mine if you know what I mean." He whispers whilst raising his eyebrows with smugness. Carmelita's first reaction is to punch the living daylights out of him to break his jaw so he physically can't torture her with increasing audacity and inappropriateness.

_No! Don't do it. Be the bigger one. _She thinks to herself, especially since the chief inspector is within sight. She unclenches her fist and turns to walk away from the situation.

"Inspector." Carmelita asks as she calmly approaches Barkley to complain about the situation.

"Yes, inspector."

"Can I change pairs with someone else?" Carmelita asks.

"No inspector, that's the point of…"

"He's being inappropriate to me." She complains.

"It's just for this time, we're all a team against crime so we have to act like it as well."

"No, I won't, he's making sexual remarks which I won't tolerate. He's been doing this for weeks." She says, Carmelita doesn't look at Winthrop, who in turn is staring at Carmelita.

"Have you filed…?"

"19, and nothing's been done. All I hear is 'we'll take it under consideration', how much consideration does it need?" She asks. Perhaps he's the wrong person to direct her complaint to; after all, the one's at the top try to maintain the status quo.

"Alright." Barkley concedes. "I'll talk to him now."

He doesn't want to lose one of his most promising talents because of the clumsiness of another officer. So he steps over to Winthrop and directs him over to a space corner of the room where he has a private chat to him. Carmelita watches to try and read either their body language or what they are saying. From the looks of it, She thinks he is finally being put in his place and that finally she can have this annoyance creeping up upon her whenever it gets a chance. After this conversation, Barkley announces the 1-minute warning for all involved and Winthrop walks back to Carmelita with a more contained presence.

"If I offended you. I'm sorry." He apologizes. "I realize what I said is wrong and that It won't happen again. We're meant to be a team, right? This isn't going to help so I'll stop."

Carmelita gains a modicum respect for him for doing this, even if he was warned only seconds prior to doing it.

"So does this mean it's official?" He remarks. The next thing he knows is that he's on the floor after being punching right in his smug little face by the vixen. Her fellow officers instantly hold her back from doing any more damage to him.

"Inspector Fox! This is entirely unprofessional!" Barkley rants in front of all of the officers in the room. "You get your things and head home immediately when I let you, I'm suspending you from duty until Monday, effective immediately."

Carmelita realizes what she's done after having been blinding by an all consuming and instantaneous rage. She feels dejected, knowing her stellar reputation has taken a heavy blow, however, if this is what it takes to get rid of Winthrop once and for all, then and only then it would be worth it.

"Everyone else, you have 15 minutes, time starts now." He announces. Everyone leaves the room as they squeeze through the single doorway, some more eagerly than other, to begin the intra-office competition; except for Barkley, Carmelita and the moaning Winthrop who's only now getting to his feet.

"Both of you! I don't know what to do with you two. Every time you get near each other it creates a flashpoint. Explain to me why you shouldn't be relocated to separate locations.

"Inspector, with all due respect, I'm not at fault here." Carmelita explains. "He tried to flirt with me after he apologized, he doesn't stop."

"Detective, do you have anything to say?"

Winthrop is still holding his lower jaw, he opens and close his mouth to check it's not broken, which it isn't.

"That hurt." He says through some pain.

"It meant to." Carmelita retorts.

"Settle down you two." Barkley instructs. "Carmelita, you'll leave now."

"Yes sir." She concurs, anything to get out of Winthrop's sight. She leaves the room to see several groups waiting just outside with nothing in their hands. Perhaps Barkley made this more of a challenge that she first thought. She brushes past them and trudges off to her office to collect her belongings and have an early weekend. She opens her door to a very strange sight. Her desk is full of Easter eggs of all sizes and coloured wrappings, If anything it made the room much more colourful, but this is a weird occurrence. Even the cardboard box with the pistol in it is there. She steps in for a closer look.

"Look! They're all in her office!" One of the officers shouts as he races over to see the massive pile of chocolate. Lying on top of this pile of chocolate is a note, a calling card… Sly's calling card. She turns it over.

_Happy Easter! S.C. _is handwritten in black pen on the underside. She throws this note back at the eggs in frustration. He's been here in this building! The other officers are gathering around to see the massive haul of eggs that she somehow accumulated all whilst being in the break room.

"Inspector Barkley!" One of the officers calls out. "You need to see this!"

Barkley walks out of the room and filters through the crowd to get into Carmelita's office. He is aghast by this blatant breach of security one he sees the calling card.

"How did?" He begins to ask, but he realizes that the answer would be pure speculation, no evidence will be found nor any trace of this new player on the criminal scene apart from his calling card. "Well, somehow, you found all of the eggs." He says in a labored manner. "You win the pistol as I see you have already collected."

She pushes the eggs over to one side of her desk so she can pick up some case files that were buried under the chocolate. She then turns to the pistol with it's red body and gold bordering, it resembles a ray gun more than anything else from the back. She takes it out of the box, causing some of the officers take a step back to make sure they don't become her first target. After analyzing it, she places it inside her handbag along with the accessory charging unit and instructions. She walks past the murmuring police officers who will spend the rest of the day investigating this occurrence. She takes a look to the right at the elevator, which is where she needs to go to leave the building. She sees a grey furred officer waiting for the elevator all by himself. He takes a look over to his left and their eyes meet. He turns his head and makes a little wave and wink before stepping inside the elevator. This puts Carmelita on red alert.

"Move!" She shouts as she tries to move through the crowd of qualified officers to get to the imposter. Once she breaks free of the group, she sprints to the elevator to catch him in time. The doors are shuts before she can block them or press the call button for the car. So she drops her stuff and races down the service stairs all the way to the ground floor, hoping that she'll catch him before he even reaches the bottom. She gets to the ground floor and looks around for the raccoon walking or running out of the building. She doesn't so her eyes turn to the elevator doors, she waits in front of them for several seconds but none of them do. Then, she smiles to relieve herself from the embarrassment of her mistake. He never was going to the ground floor. Sly went in the opposite direction.

It's not looking like a very happy Easter for Carmelita.


End file.
